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Ranked among the world’s top medical schools with the fifth-largest MD enrollment in North America, the UBC Faculty of Medicine is a leader in both the science and the practice of medicine. Across British Columbia, more than 12,000 faculty and staff are training the next generation of doctors, health care professionals, and medical researchers, making remarkable discoveries to help create the pathways to better health for our communities at home and around the world.
The UBC Faculty of Medicine offers a diverse array of training opportunities including cutting-edge research experiences in the biosciences, globally recognized population health education, quality health professional training, as well as several certificate and online training options. The Faculty of Medicine is home to more than 1,700 graduate students housed in 20 graduate programs (14 of which offer doctoral research options). Year after year, research excellence in the Faculty of Medicine is supported by investment from funding sources here at home and around the globe, receiving approximately more than $1.8B in total research funding since 2016.
We value our trainees and the creative input they have to scholarly activities at UBC. Our priority is to enable their maximum potential through flexible opportunities that provide a breadth of experiences tailored to their own individual career objectives. We maintain high standards of excellence, and work to create a community of intellectually and socially engaged scholars that work collaboratively with each other, the university, and the world, with the overarching goal of promoting the health of individuals and communities.
Most Faculty research is conducted under the auspices of 23 centres and institutes that are part of UBC or affiliated with it, in collaboration with our health partners.
UBC Faculty of Medicine provides innovative educational and research programs in the areas of health and life sciences through an integrated and province-wide delivery model in facilities at locations throughout British Columbia.
The Life Sciences Centre is the largest building on the UBC Vancouver campus. Completed in 2004, the $125 million, 52,165 sq metres building was built to accommodate the distributed medical educational program and the Life Sciences Institute.
The Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health (DMCBH), a partnership between the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health, unites under one roof research and clinical expertise in neuroscience, psychiatry and neurology in order to accelerate discovery and translate new knowledge into better treatment and prevention strategies. DMCBH has both laboratory and clinical research areas within the Centre proper and in the UBC Hospital Koerner Pavilion. Our core facilities are essential to ongoing collaboration, teaching, and research.
The BC Children's Hospital Research Institute is it the largest research institute of its kind in Western Canada in terms of people, productivity, funding and size. With more than 350,000 square feet of space, the Institute has both 'wet bench' laboratory and 'dry lab' clinical research areas, and other areas to facilitate particular areas of research and training.
New knowledge and innovation are crucial to successfully identifying, addressing and overcoming the increasingly complex health-related challenges that influence the lives of all of us – in British Columbia, in Canada, and in countries and communities around the globe.
The UBC Faculty of Medicine is recognized nationally and internationally for research innovation that advances knowledge and translates new discoveries to improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities. Research opportunities feature extensive collaborations across other faculties, health institutions and health partners across British Columbia, Canada and internationally.
The Faculty provides and fosters research excellence across the full continuum, from basic science to applied science and then to knowledge implementation, with a focus on precision health; cancer; brain and mental health; heart and lung health; population health; and chronic diseases.
This is an incomplete sample of recent publications in chronological order by UBC faculty members with a primary appointment in the Faculty of Medicine.
| Year | Citation | Program |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Dr. Schaeffer investigated the underlying causes of breathing discomfort and the use of supplemental oxygen for exercise in patients with interstitial lung disease. Her findings have important implications for exercise rehabilitation and symptom management in this population. | Doctor of Philosophy in Rehabilitation Sciences (PhD) |
| 2018 | Dr. Khowaja conducted an economic evaluation of the community-level interventions for pre-eclampsia. His research highlights incremental costs to the health system and families. Though substantial investments are being made for technology adoption, he argues that a societal perspective is imperative to inform decisions on resource allocation. | Doctor of Philosophy in Reproductive and Developmental Sciences (PhD) |
| 2018 | Dr. Qu's study focussed on currently incurable advanced prostate cancer. Using a state-of-the-art cancer model he showed that anticancer activity of first line chemotherapy can be markedly boosted with the drug Aneustat without increasing toxicity. This drug combination may lead to improved clinical treatment of advanced prostate cancer. | Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Oncology (PhD) |
| 2018 | Dr. Peters studied how the brain focuses attention and plans leg movements after stroke. She found that the amount of attention that is paid to sensory information during movement planning is an important factor in community balance and mobility. This knowledge will aid with developing targeted rehabilitation of balance and mobility after stroke. | Doctor of Philosophy in Rehabilitation Sciences (PhD) |
| 2018 | Dr. Mitelut showed that spontaneous neural activity has temporal structure and can be linked across spatial scaled between single neurons to entire cortical hemispheres. This research further advances our understanding of cortical activity in mammals. | Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience (PhD) |
| 2018 | Dr. Kerr established a new tool to study viruses that infect agriculturally and economically important insects, such as honeybees. With this tool, he researched how these viruses produce proteins. This work has deepened our knowledge of fundamental protein synthesis, common to all life, and our understanding of this emerging family of viruses. | Doctor of Philosophy in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (PhD) |
| 2018 | Dr. Lim uncovered a novel mechanism for how the cancer-causing gene K-RAS modulates antioxidant levels within cancer cells to protect them from damaging free radicals and in order to support cancer initiation and growth. This research presents a new therapeutic strategy for the treatment of difficult-to-treat cancers driven by K-RAS. | Doctor of Philosophy in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (PhD) |
| 2017 | Dr. Fernando investigated the role of extracellular vesicles in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS. Her findings revealed that specific vesicle populations are capable of transmitting protein misfolding to recipient cells. This research provides novel evidence for the role of extracellular vesicles in human ALS disease. | Doctor of Philosophy in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (PhD) |
| 2017 | Dr. Singh developed novel anti breast cancer therapeutics that bind to a new region on the estrogen receptor. These drug candidates are able to outsmart the cancer and overcome mutation driven drug resistance problem. Dr. Singh's results may have important clinical applications in terms of prolonging the life span of breast cancer patients. | Doctor of Philosophy in Experimental Medicine (PhD) |
| 2017 | Dr. Tseng examined bone health in women who had been treated for breast cancer. She showed that some breast cancer therapies are associated with higher fracture risk, and examined the effect of educational materials discussing bone scans, exercise, and calcium intake, on bone health in these women. | Doctor of Philosophy in Interdisciplinary Oncology (PhD) |